


Hang Fire

by SaltCore



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Jesse's POV, Language, M/M, POV Second Person, Panic, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 19:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16838776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: You know all sorts of things you wish you didn’t, Jesse McCree. Now, unequivocally, how easy it would be to lose the man you love is one of them.(This is a direct sequel toThere Are Dangerous Things.)





	Hang Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically part of [We Get What We Deserve](https://archiveofourown.org/series/796818), but it's not really focused on the dragons themselves. It follows [There Are Dangerous Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15948059) and assumes you've read it.

You know all sorts of things you wish you didn’t, Jesse McCree. What it sounds like when a man chokes to death on his own blood. How gun smoke and burning blood mix into the Devil’s own cologne. How long it takes to get that smell out of your clothes.

Now you know just how much force it takes to break Hanzo’s ribs.

One hundred beats per minute. That’s the number you learned in a dim conference room when you were just eighteen. That’s the pace you had to maintain when Hanzo couldn’t. That rhythm is one of your reflexes, honed in the backs of personnel carriers, in dirty, hidden corners, in hundreds of awful, lonely places the rest of world chooses not to see.

You knew what to do, how hard to press, when to push air from your lungs into his, but you didn’t know if it would make a damn bit of difference. If Hanzo hadn’t started breathing again—

Clench your teeth, like the thought is bile crawling up your throat. He did, so the _if_ doesn’t matter. You cannot think about _ifs_ right now. Hanzo needs you to keep your shit together until help comes.

Help is coming, because you are alive to call for it. You should be dead, should be a cooling corpse in the back of a van, but you aren’t. Because Hanzo poured the fury of a pair of distilled nightmares over himself and lit it like kerosene.

Hanzo is lying in the back seat of a car you stole. Think of it that way— _a car you stole_ —instead of the, perhaps more appropriate, terms— _in the back seat of the car belonging to a man Hanzo killed_. You couldn’t say which man. Hanzo single handedly killed quite a few people today.

The door is open, which isn’t strictly necessary, but you wouldn’t be able to listen to him breath otherwise. The rattle of his lungs is in no way reassuring, but it’s better than silence. You don’t know what, precisely, is the problem. You don’t know why his heart stopped. You do know he looks like he tripped into an open campfire. His hands are a raw red, the skin already peeling in places. The creature in his tattoo looks sick, and that feels like an evil omen.

Here’s the thing. You know, in the abstract, that Hanzo and Genji are capable of things a normal person can’t conceive. That Hanzo spends a lot of time sitting in medical because of it. Now you know, concretely, that Hanzo can kill seven people in under a minute, unarmed. Not just kill, but obliterate off the face of the goddamn planet.

And you now know that he might stop breathing to accomplish it.

Here’s another thing. Sometimes when you kiss him, it makes your teeth buzz. Sometimes you think you’ve invited a lighting strike into your bed. Sometimes, when he’s sleeping, you think something is watching you. There’s the man, and you think you have a handle on him, but there’s something else. Something that scares you.

But you can’t think about that, not right now.

Focus on the watch you know you ought to stand, despite evac being only a few minutes out. Despite it being the middle of the night. Despite the car’s cabin lights having wrecked your night vision. Turn your head anyway, stare a slow arc out into the darkness and dare something to walk out of it. Listen to the cicadas scream. Listen to Hanzo’s shitty, rasping breathing.

You shouldn’t be counting his breaths, but do it anyway. Count until thirty, and then start over again. Watch the darkness. Don’t glance down at him. Don’t remind yourself, _again_ , that you’ve seen better looking corpses. Just listen for the rasp, and hope, for his sake, he doesn’t wake up.

There were biotic injectors in the van with the cryopod (don’t think about the cryopod). When you called for evac, Doc said to dose him every forty-five minutes until you ran out. (Doc told you he would be okay, and that she’d be there soon, and that you shouldn’t worry. Doc tells you a lot of things. Sometimes you believe her.) Hanzo passed out before the second injection.

Don’t think about the way that scared you when you noticed. Don’t think about the bruise forming on your knee from bashing it into the steering wheel as you twisted to reach back and check his pulse. Don’t think about how stupid you felt when you found it.

Don’t think about how it felt when you _didn’t_ , a few hours ago.

The absence of nicotine is a furious itch in your mind. You need it to smother all the things you aren’t thinking. But you don’t dare make breathing any harder than it has to be for Hanzo, so fidget with the loop of plastic still stuck on your left wrist instead. Keep staring out into the darkness. Keep counting.

In the distance, the running lights for the Orca appear, a pair of stars colored red and green. It’s running low, dangerously low. Fareeha doesn’t take risks like that, so it must be Lena in the pilot’s chair. Fareeha would be more of a comfort, but Lena’s the better pilot. Decide to be glad they sent Lena.

Know with certainty it’s Lena when the Orca drops fast and lands delicately. She can’t resist that kind of flourish. The cargo door starts to open with a hydraulic groan, but you don’t wait for the team to meet you. Turn away and reach into the car. Hanzo’s not a tall man, but he’s dense with muscle. Luckily, so are you. Pull him out of the backseat, cradle him in your arms. The way his head is resting against your shoulder, you can feel his warm breaths puffing against your neck. Alive, you remind yourself, he’s alive.

What if he wasn’t?

Clamp down on the thought, refuse to indulge it. Now is not the time. Walk toward the Orca, as quickly as you can. Four silhouettes appear on the ramp, back lit from the lights inside. Two break away, trot down the ramp to meet you—Doc and Genji. Genji keeps going, sparing a clap on your shoulder as he passes, but Doc starts working before your boots even hit metal, the golden glow of the biotics casting flickering shadows on her face. Her frown makes your blood run cold.

“Get the cryopod ready,” Doc calls over her shoulder. See Captain Amari and Lucio hop to attention. Feel a flicker of hesitation. The memory of that cryopod in the back of the van sits heavy in your chest. Hanzo wouldn’t want to be fridged, not right now.

Remember that Doc won’t give a rat’s ass about that. She’ll fridge him if she thinks he needs to be fridged. Whatever it takes to keep him alive. Besides, Hanzo won’t know until it’s well behind him. Swallow down the protest and walk toward the pod.

Lay him down inside, as gently as you can. Take the aching need to linger, to touch him, and bury it somewhere dark. Hanzo needs help you’re not qualified to give.

Doc steps in front of you, starts keying something into the control panel. As she does, she reaches back and squeezes your forearm. Her fingers can’t close the loop around the muscle there, but her grip isn’t any less reassuring for it. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. You know her well enough to infer all the comforts she would have spoken. She knows you well enough to know you understand. She’s got him. She is reliving you of duty, Agent McCree.

So then, why does it feel like tearing muscle from bone to step away from Hanzo’s side?

Step back anyway. Lucio takes the spot you vacated. He works almost as quickly as Doc does, prepping Hanzo. Watch. Listen to him breathe, while you can. Count to thirty. 

Captain Amari steps beside you, tugs you gently by your elbow. Almost throw her off, but you have better manners than that. You know how to behave for medics. Let her lead you to a jump seat, let her sit you down on plastic with just enough give to be irritating.

She blocks your view of the cryopod, staring down at you with a tight look you recognize. Worry. You’re worrying your commanding officers again.

She takes your hat from your head and sets it beside you. Her touch is firm but not rough as she tilts your face up. You’d forgotten the blow you took to the head. The dull throbbing hadn’t registered in hours. It’s been hours, hasn’t it? Must have been. Hours since—

Don’t think about it.

She tuts softly and takes something out of a pocket. An alcohol wipe. It’s cold and stings slightly when he dabs it against the split in your skin.

“Are you injured?” she asks.

“No, ma’am.”

She frowns at that, just a bit, like she doesn’t quite believe you. Meet her gaze. She must not like what she sees, because she pats your cheek like she would a child. There’s an offer in her expression—a few hours rest, if you’d take it. Let her shoulder the burden getting you all home.

But the mission isn’t over, not yet. There is so much that could still go wrong between here and Gibraltar. The Orca could be intercepted. The Watchpoint could be overrun when you return. The cryopod could fail. You might not be able to affect much, but you can at least consider it. Be ready for it.

Captain Amari sighs and takes your arm, inspects the thick ziptie still hanging from it. You’d forgotten it was even there. She produces a pair of snub nosed scissors and cuts it away, and as she does says—

“Don’t do what he did, don’t hold it all in. Promise me that?”

Ana’s voice takes on a strange timbre when she talks about Reyes. There’s grief, but there’s also something else. Maybe regret. She’s not a war hero, not an officer when she’s talking about him. She’s just a woman, worn down by a complicated life and too many losses.

Nod.

She releases your hand and walks away, heading for the cockpit. Across the bay, Doc and Lucio shut the lid of the cryopod. It hisses as it begins pumping fluids into the chamber. Wonder what Doc knows, what is wrong her biotics couldn’t fix. The answer won’t give you any comfort. Don’t ask.

Genji appears on the ramp, silent as a shadow and weighed down with everything you’d left in the car. He sets your serape and Hanzo’s weapon on a bench. Nobody else pays him much attention, but you can’t help it. Satisfying your deep seated need for situational awareness demands knowing where everyone is, what they’re doing.

Genji stops at the foot of the cryopod and goes still in that way he does, tilts his head like he’s listening. Probably staring a hole through the fuselage, though it’s impossible to be sure with the mask.

Remember that Hanzo isn’t the only one sharing space in his head.

Genji spins abruptly, marches toward you with purpose. There are no cues to read in the set of his shoulders, the length of his gait, the smooth planes of his helmet. He stops, almost at attention, right in front of you, his toes even with your heels. Stare up at him. All your concern has been wrung out of you, poured over Hanzo, so you just can’t find it in you to care if Genji is angry with you, if he is, in fact, angry with you. You’ve weathered so much of Genji’s anger for worse reasons than this.

Genji bends down and throws his arms around your neck. Pulls you out of your seat and squeezes you against the unforgiving bulk of his body. Very briefly, knocks the air out of you and doesn’t let any more in.

“You didn’t say how close a call it was,” he says. His thumb brushes the place on your scalp where the muzzle was resting. It probably wasn’t an accident. Sometimes, Genji knows things he has no right to and it’s been that way all the time you’ve known him. Clap him once, twice on the shoulder and wait for him to let you go.

Doc calls up to Lena, telling her that she has Hanzo secured. She catches your eyes as she walks to her seat. Lucio does too. The sympathy in their faces unsettles you more than anything else thus far. Captain Amari comes back down the ramp. She takes the seat on one side of you. Genji moves your hat and takes the other.

As the Orca lifts off, stare at the cryopod. Your heart’s frozen in there. They call it sleep, but it’s a kind of death, isn’t it? He’s not breathing in there. His heart’s not beating. If any one of a thousand things goes wrong, that’s his tomb.

_I got it from here, darlin’._

That’s the last thing you know he heard you say. Could you make peace with that, if you had to? There was a promise in those words. Can you live with it, if that promise is broken?

Hope, for whatever it’s worth, you don’t have to find out.

* * *

“Go get washed up.”

You started to follow Doc and Lucio to the medical wing, but Captain Amari stopped you. It’s not truly an order, but you turn on your heel like it was one. The dried blood on your cheek does itch. Rub at it as you wind your way back to your bunk.

Alone in your room, it hits you. The enormity of just how _fucked_ you were. You almost died. _Hanzo_ almost died.

He did die, just for a minute or so. His heart stopped. He staggered and crumpled not sixty centimeters away, sighed gently, and fucking died while you laid there in the dirt, writhing and desperate to get your hands free. You watched him _not breathe_ for what felt like an eternity until the plastic finally gave.

Slide down to the floor with a noise you don’t recognize as one you’re capable of making. Your body, in this moment, doesn’t even feel like your own. It’s nothing but an ill-fitting vessel for your mind as every thought you’d tried to avoid vies for consideration.

He was about to _leave you_. He still might.

It was easy to be brave when you were one who was going to die. Death has been nipping at your heels since you left your boyhood in your mother’s grave. Kneeling there in the dirt, that had seemed as fitting an end as any.

Fear didn’t come until he collapsed.

Your right hand shakes as you fist it in your hair. What if Doc can’t help him? She’d stopped the clock on those things living under his skin tearing him apart, but what if he’d just undone all her good work? You can’t bear to do this again. To watch someone you love succumb, bit by bit, to runaway biology.

Sit there until the panic fades to a dull ache in your chest. You’re still covered in dirt and dry sweat and blood. Captain Amari told you to get cleaned up, and she had a point. Haul yourself up and shuck your gear and clothes off. Toss everything into a pile by the foot of the bed.

The water in the shower will only crack tepid at best, but it’s that or the ocean. The pipes groan as water sputters out of the fixture, and experience tells you it will be a minute before it’s tolerable. Lean over the sink while you wait. Stare at the man in the mirror. Don’t recognize him for a moment. Who is that gaunt, sorry looking bastard staring back at you?

Poor son of a bitch.

The water on the floor of the shower runs brown. Stand there until it doesn’t. Half-ass rubbing yourself down with soap, taking just enough care to make sure the blood on your face is gone.

There are two towels on the rack. Yours is the white one, standard issue, nothing special. Hanzo bought himself thick, soft ones, in light blue. They never quite dry right in the humidity here. It drives him crazy.

It’s dry now, because you’ve been gone days.

Take your towel, dry yourself. Your bunk is cluttered with all your things and half of Hanzo’s. He left a t-shirt draped over the back of your desk chair. When you lift it to your face, it smells of detergent and his deodorant. Pull it over your head. Find boxers, a pair of pants, socks. Tug your boots back on.

Wrung out and raw, go to him.

* * *

It’s never quiet in the medbay, not truly. You know quiet. The desert at sundown. The instant between squeezing a trigger and the crack of gunfire. The held breath before bad news.

The medbay is full of soft chimes and beeps. Machines that pump life back into people, humming along. Though this time, there’s not so many as you’d expect. IV bags dangle from a stand beside the bed, with tubing arcing from them to Hanzo’s arm.

He’s asleep. Really asleep, not in stasis, not in some platitude for almost dead. His breathing sounds better. He still looks like shit. Reach out, touch his wrist. Prove to yourself that he has a pulse.

His skin is tacky. No one has bothered to wipe away the film of stabilization medium. You’ve woken plenty times covered in it, and each time it’s just as revolting.

When Doc comes back into the room, she finds you trying your best to wipe it off Hanzo’s face with tissues from the little bedside table.

“Wait,” she says, and goes over to one of the cabinets. She pulls a large box of wipes out and hands one to you. “These work better.”

“Thanks.”

She watches you clean Hanzo’s face, waits patiently as you get his neck and hands as well. That’s where it feels worst, in your opinion anyway.

Toss the wipe away and settle yourself on the edge of the bed. Doc steps closer. She hasn’t got her bad news face on, but she doesn’t look like she’s about to tell you something wonderful either.

“He’s stable, and I’m not expecting that to change,” she starts. Something in you unclenches. “Whatever he did, it was unbelievably taxing, but it’s under control now. I am worried about the—” she hesitates. Gets that unsettled look that comes with talking about the _things_. The so-called dragons. “the radiation exposure. He’s responded well so far to treatment.” She narrows her eyes. “He still might yet outlive you if you don’t quit that filthy habit.”

Huff a laugh.

“That wouldn’t be so bad.”

Doc rolls her eyes at you, genuinely irritated. She’ll forgive you though. She always has.

Get back to your feet. There are chairs lining the wall. You’ve spent plenty of nights sitting bedside, and this vigil you’re happy to stand.

“He’s heavily sedated,” she says. Flick your eyes over to meet hers, waiting for her to elaborate. She bites her top lip, worries it for a moment. “He doesn’t know you’re here. There’s no harm in sleeping in your own bed tonight.”

“I’ll stay here, if it’s all the same.”

She sighs. Squeezes your shoulder.

“All right. Get _some_ rest. You won’t be proving anything to him running yourself ragged, Jesse.”

* * *

“Jesse.”

Jerk upright. Sleep crept up on you, silent as an assassin. Hanzo is staring at you. On anyone else, that would be a look of deep suspicion, but Hanzo is just groggy. Smile at him, so wide your cheeks hurt.

“Hey, baby.”

“Why are you over there?” He says something else in Japanese you don’t quite catch.

Get up in lieu of answering, set yourself on the bed. Take his hand between your own. It’s warm in your grasp.

“Better.” He narrows his eyes at you. “I feel strange.”

“I think Doc gave you something, sugar.”

Hanzo hums, considering this new information. Whatever sedative Doc gave him has him running at half speed. Sometimes that makes him irritable, but for the moment he doesn’t seem upset.

He looks back up at you, puzzling you out. The relief you feel almost hurts. He hasn’t left you, not yet. Your baby’s still here.

"You are unwell," he pronounces. Look at him, worrying over you, even now.

"You—" Your tongue goes dry. He squeezes your fingers, encouraging. "You scared me somethin' fierce."

"I didn't mean to."

"I know. We'll can save it for the morning."

He huffs, lets his gaze roam over you. Assessing, as if you are the one who came back on ice.

“That’s my shirt,” he says, abrupt. “Take it off.”

“Han.”

“I hate it when you wear shirts.”

Laugh softly. Doc would never let you hear the end of it if she found you in here with your shirt off, so you leave it on. Hanzo frowns and tries to tug at the cotton with fumbling hands. Take his hands and lift them to your lips, hoping to mollify him with kisses to his knuckles. His skin is still pink with mostly healed burns.

He pouts at you, lip stuck out and everything. Oh, he’s lucky it’s only you here. Bend down, kiss the wrinkle between his eyes. He loops his arms around you, holding you close. He smells like cyroprotectant and sweat. Feels warm like sunshine.

“Mine. All mine,” he mumbles. He sounds like he might be drifting off again. That’s all right. He’s earned all the sleep he wants.

Settle yourself in the bed beside him. Watch as his breathing evens back out into sleep. In the morning, there will be Doc and her tests. There will be the process of healing. There will be a debrief. But right now, it’s just the two of you.

Alive. Together.

And that’s all you could want.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
